


It’s Time To Bring This Ship In To The Shore (And Throw Away The Oars Forever)

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angsty Schmoop, Falling In Love, Filming, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael’s never wanted to be one half of a bonded pair, and anyway real genuine soul-bonds are awfully rare, one chance in thousands, aren’t they? So he can just happily go on with his independence. Except then there’s James. And those blue, blue eyes, meeting his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Title from REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” because I couldn’t resist. 
> 
> A gift-fic for [nianeyna](http://nianeyna.tumblr.com/), who requested McFassy soul-bond fic, ages ago. She also said she liked soap-opera emotions. Just pointing that out, because that's the reason the narrative starts where it does.
> 
> I don't actually have any clue what I'm doing with this trope, but hopefully it's somewhat close to the desired result!

The hospital wasn’t silent. Michael, holding James’s motionless hand, thought—as much as he could think—that that was wrong. It should be hushed, respectful, as frightened as he was. Instead there were beeps and chirps and the faint chatter of doctors being paged, down the hall, and far away.  
  
He held James’s hand more tightly. James didn’t stir. Didn’t open his eyes.  
  
They’d said terrifying words, bringing him in. Fractured skull. Pressure. Bleeding. Michael knew about the bleeding. He’d seen it firsthand. So much blood.  
  
James wasn’t awake, hadn’t stirred or regained consciousness. Nothing was hurting; no pain echoed across the bond, shared through their connection.  
  
It might not’ve been shared anyway. Because he, Michael, had been scared and stupid and panicked and hadn’t allowed them to share anything. The soul-bond wavered, a tangibly tattered and forlorn little thing. James continued to not move.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said, out loud, even though he’d said it before. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’ve been wrong this whole time, James, please.”  
  
Nothing changed.  
  
The machinery beeped, electronic efforts at reassurance, again. James probably would’ve patted it in reply.  
  
“I think I love you,” Michael told him. “No. I do love you. I’ve—I’ve had time to think. And I never expected any of this, and I never wanted to have a bond with anyone, and I never thought I’d fall in love with the person I was trying so hard not to want, but I do, James, I do, I want you, and I love you, not because I have to or because we’re meant to be together or any of that, I love your hair and your eyes and the way you looked at me when we talked about my father and the way you remember everyone’s names, always, so please, please, I’m sorry, please wake up and let me tell you that I love you, _please_.”  
  
More silence. Broken by the uncaring beeps.  
  
He’d never wanted to be part of a bonded couple. Some people did—he’d had friends who loved the very thought, the romance of it, always being connected, constantly in tune with their partner, knowing the instant the other person felt happy or hurt or annoyed or sad, two halves of a whole, and incomplete without the other. People talked about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, or Richard the Lionheart and his minstrel boy, or the Beckhams, god forbid.  
  
Michael’d been horrified, from a very young age. The idea of belonging to someone so completely, so intimately, never being one individual person, not really, anymore; the thought of crippling grief that could change the course of nations; the idea that he could just be made to share his life with someone, out of the blue, no choice in the matter…Those things had all combined to make him declare, at the age of twelve, that he hoped he’d never meet his bonded, if he had one. He’d shocked his sister—one of the romantic camp—then and later, but he’d stood by it.  
  
He’d said so. He’d continued to believe it. He had a life, he had a career, he made his own choices. And if he fell in love, he wanted it to be natural, not some nudging by the universe to find a partner.  
  
Besides, real true genuine soul-bonds were incredibly rare. Two people out of perhaps two thousand, or even more; no one was quite sure of the exact odds. Scientists who’d made studies had concluded three things: first, bonds were rare, and generally occurred when one or both people involved might be likely to need the strength, for whatever reason; second, partners who were meant to be together did generally appear at roughly the same time and relatively the same place, therefore avoiding any unpleasantness with an unfulfilled bond because the bonded had died in the previous century halfway across the world; and third, importantly, there seemed to be no good way to break a soul-bond, once at least the first meeting had taken place.  
  
It’d been tried. The partners ended up calling off the experiment, in agony, halfway through. No one had ever dared repeat the test.  
  
He looked back at James. Remembered that first meeting. They’d been so young. Hadn’t known anything at all.  
  
He’d been in the middle of filming _Band of Brothers_ , enjoying this first big taste of fame, loving all the sweaty days and long hours and early mornings, throwing himself into the work with abandon. During that scene, he was supposed to run across a plank-bridge, over a trench, leading other men. He’d nodded, and found his mark, and started off on cue precisely.  
  
Two steps across, he’d felt—something, like a nagging little sense of déjà vu, as if he’d been there before, had always known this place and that precise motion. Had looked down, crossing the ditch filled with fake movie blood and mud and artistic scatterings of dirt.  
  
Blue eyes met his, looking up at the exact same time.  
  
The sense of _yes right this THIS_ slammed through his body with enough force that he’d fallen off the damn bridge.  
  
And it wasn’t only him. He knew that; could feel it, too, that astounded comprehension, exquisite longing and need and togetherness, the certainty that neither of them would ever have to be alone, not ever again—  
  
Michael, inches away from the blue eyes, both of them wearing their ridiculous soldier’s helmets and also quite a lot of bruises from where he’d landed, from the eyes scrambling over other bodies to try to catch him, had got out, “No—”  
  
Those eyes—the color of oceans in summer, he’d thought, dazedly, and he really needed a better term for the boy, but they’d never met, never even been introduced on set—heard him. Widened with shock. That shock echoed in the bond, too, straining the still-fragile newborn connection.  
  
And then their castmates and crew’d descended upon them, everyone cheering and offering congratulations and drinks. Spielberg had kept wanting to shake their hands—“a real soul-bond, on my set! What are the odds? You know, someone should make a movie out of this!”—and Tom Hanks thumped Michael on the shoulder and contributed, “Good luck, you know that bonded pairs generally have quite a lot of impact on history one way or the other, that’s why they need the extra support, it’s all about destiny, so I’ll be interested to follow your careers, you and James,” and Michael’d forgotten how to breathe for a while.  
  
James. The blue-eyed boy’s name was James. That was a fact.  
  
And, under all the dirt and fake blood, he proved to have dark hair that fell into his eyes with every head-tilt, and expressive hands that swept the air around in energetic gestures while talking, and freckles that glinted mischievously up at Michael from the bridge of that nose; he was shorter than Michael’s own lean height, but more solid somehow, all compact muscles and strength. And, despite appearances and those damnable freckles, he wasn’t a boy, either: two years younger than Michael himself.  
  
Thank god. If he’d ended up in this mess with a barely-legal child—no matter how beautiful those eyes were—it all could’ve been so much worse. At least James hadn’t had any romantic ideas about the glory of soul-bonds either; this fact’d become apparent when, in a momentary lull in the congratulatory celebrations, they’d stood there looking at each other, a hush amid the din.  
  
“I know you don’t want this,” James’d said, the first real proper sentence he’d ever said to Michael. “You had plans, for your life, and you didn’t want this. Neither did I.” Michael blinked at him, tangled up in _no of course I don’t_ and _wait but you’re not supposed to feel that way that’s MY issue_ and the pained quivering of their connection at the threat to it and the realization that James was _Scottish_ , on top of everything else, voice like Highland whisky and dark amber and smoke and spice, and Michael’d always had a weakness for accents…  
  
Oh, for _fuck’s_ sake.  
  
He refused to let the universe win this one. “So…if you don’t, and I don’t…what can we do?”  
  
“I don’t know.” James attempted to make some sort of gesture of helplessness; realized belatedly that he was still holding his costume rifle, glanced at it in surprise. “I’ve never…I’ve only known one couple who were bonded, ever. And never anyone who tried to get rid of it. Can we…”  
  
“…just ignore it? Maybe. Why didn’t you want this?” He’d groaned inwardly the second the words were out of his mouth. But James didn’t want the bond. Didn’t want _him_.  
  
James sighed. “Look…I never expected…not ever…so, well. I fell in love, actually. I’m engaged. She’s absolutely brilliant, and we’re going to be married in the spring, and—we _would_ have been. Married in the spring.”  
  
Michael stared at him, speechless. Of course James had a life without him, of course James could fall in love without him, of course James could be loved by someone; Michael himself was standing there contemplating ways to break this whole ludicrous connection off, and it meant nothing that apparently they thought the same way about these things, that the whole conversation felt effortless if not easy, as if he’d known James his entire life, the words they’d each say falling naturally into place; it meant nothing that when James licked his lips Michael tracked the sweep of shine left by pink tongue over skin.  
  
“You,” he said, and his voice sounded rough, unfamiliar to his own ears, “you can still get married. I’m not—I won’t—we’ll just. Ignore it.”  
  
“It’ll hurt,” James had said, quietly. Michael’d opened his mouth to make some sort of sarcastic reply—surely he’d not just gotten bonded to a young man afraid of a little bit of pain—and then he’d understood that the concern in that gaze, shimmering through the link, wasn’t for James himself, but on Michael’s behalf.  
  
Evidently he was bonded to the most compassionate person in existence, too. Beautiful and pocket-sized and freckled and Scottish and empathetic and kind. Michael wanted to bang his head against the nearest heavy object.  
  
“I don’t care if it hurts. I don’t have time for—I mean. Destiny. That’s just…I don’t have a destiny, all right? I’m an actor. You’re an actor. We spend our lives pretending to be other people, telling stories, and we’re not—we’ve only just started, all of this. Our careers. You can’t want this now either. So we…both don’t want this, right?”  
  
Right?  
  
James had looked away. Not met his gaze. Said, to the ground and the silence, “…right.”  
  
“Right,” Michael’d said again, and fled to the safety of his trailer before anyone else could offer to buy them drinks at the bar.  
  
He’d only realized later what a shabby departure that’d been. He’d left James standing there with the weight of all those congratulations pressing down on him, alone and having to make the sudden explanations for that aloneness.  
  
In the present, watching as James breathed, steady and machine-regulated, he hated himself a little more. If that were possible. He suspected it wasn’t. He was, after all, the reason James was here.  
  
Fortunately they’d been nearly done filming, back then. He’d managed to avoid James for the entire last two weeks, after that, though it was odd: he’d’ve sworn, on a couple of those days, that he’d seen James’s name on the schedule to share one of his own scenes, and every time he made a mental note to request a change, it turned out that someone’d already requested the same change, such that by the time Michael got to set, he was being handed revised script pages from which James’s character had disappeared.  
  
He nearly asked about that, after the third time—his mother’d always said coincidence wasn’t—but caught a glimpse of blue eyes, not even _his_ blue eyes, one of the interns, laughing, handing Tom a cup of coffee, and resolutely didn’t.  
  
He didn’t know what James had told people, but no one else offered congratulations or cheered them on, though a few people did look at him rather strangely, and Tom handed him a volleyball, with the mysterious comment, “you look like you could use the company.”  
  
The volleyball’d had a smiling face drawn on it. Michael threw it at the hotel-room wall, later, and took some satisfaction in the way that side hit the paint.  
  
He hadn’t _asked_ for this. Didn’t want it. Shouldn’t be forced to endure it. And maybe if he pretended it hadn’t happened, it would all go away. The bond wasn’t fully formed; it wouldn’t be, until and unless they acknowledged it, opened themselves up to it, became…intimate. And while Michael wouldn’t mind becoming _physically_ intimate with James—who was, after all, pretty much his mental checklist of desirable attributes—emotional intimacy was out of the question. He wasn’t going to give himself over to that. He knew the stories. Refused to end up a shell of himself.  
  
He’d woken up every morning with a deep ache in his chest, a sick strange longing, as if some vital organ had gone missing, leaving empty space behind. At night his bed, always perfectly adequate before, stretched out too widely, unfulfilled.  
  
At work he could distract himself. Could throw himself into his character, wholeheartedly, and take the constant low-level throb and channel it into wartime pain.  
  
He found himself wondering whether James was doing the same. Forcibly, stopped.  
  
It _hurt_ , constantly, and the connection was uneven. It came and went. Flared and faded. Once he got an intense burst of pleasure at the first sip of coffee in the morning, some frothy concoction of hazelnut syrup and whipped cream and toffee that Michael’d never drink in a million years. He’d mentally slapped that sensation away, hard, and the bond had been very quiet the rest of the day.  
  
Once he’d felt a kind of slow-burning frustration, not at himself but at the scene, the set-up, taking ages, and the sun being so hot, and the weight of the costuming, and James was pretty sure that was a sunburn starting on the back of his neck, where the heat sizzled…Michael’d been thinking about cool water and lakes, hearing the wordless appreciation, before he could stop himself.  
  
One other time, very late at night, himself restless and unable to sleep, the uneven edges of the bond scraping over his nerves like broken glass, he’d felt James crying, black lightless despair, heartwrenching sobs that tugged at Michael’s heart uneasily, with guilt, with some other nameless emotion. He’d sat up in bed, and reached out, tentatively, knowing he’d hate himself for it but unable to feel that grief a second longer.  
  
The connection, always so elusive, flickered and blew out, windily.  
  
He’d tried again. This time James had knocked him away, more emotions than words: _you don’t want this, it’s not your fault, you don’t need to do anything, and this is my problem_ —a woman’s face, blonde hair, whipping into view before James pulled back so far Michael could barely touch him. _Don’t_ , James thought at him again. _You don’t want this. It won’t be honest, and it won’t be fair to you._ And the connection fractured like bone in the night.  
  
Michael’d caught a glimpse of James, from a distance, while getting coffee the following day. The set of those sturdy shoulders might’ve been weary, but James straightened up and smiled at the intern who came to find him, and followed her back to set with perfect poise. Michael was too far away to see his eyes.  
  
The production had ended promptly but abruptly, as they tended to do. James was finished shooting a day before he was. Was gone before Michael even knew it; he heard as much from his make-up person, who patted him on the shoulder and offered him a chocolate doughnut. “—and I’m sorry you’re still stuck here, sorry you two couldn’t work out a better schedule together, but I know this was unexpected, dear, well, you’ll be done soon and you can go catch up with him—”  
  
Michael’d wanted to laugh—she had no idea, none at all, he wasn’t planning to catch up with James again ever, James was dangerous—and then, all at once, he’d wanted to cry.  
  
He didn’t even like chocolate doughnuts, or not that much anyway, but he’d eaten the whole damn thing, just to fight off the tears.  
  
A tap on the door, and it pulled him back to current time; he looked up.  
  
“How’s he doing?” The doctor came in, eyed the immobile form on the bed. “Anything you can tell us?”  
  
If they’d had a stronger bond, he might be able to. If they’d had a bond at all. If he’d not been so irrationally scared that finding his bonded meant losing himself.  
  
He would lose a piece of himself anyway, if James died. Not because of their weakly flickering bond, but because he was in love with James.  
  
He couldn’t feel anything. Only blankness, in their link. Not emptiness—he’d know if James were…not alive…but not a presence, either.  
  
He shook his head.  
  
“Well,” the man said, not without compassion, “you’d likely be the first to know, so let us know if anything changes,” and wandered away.  
  
Michael found himself breathing in time with the monitors, unconsciously. He was starting to not mind the beeps. With each second that James didn’t awaken, they became more crucial, tiny indications of life.


	2. then and now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they meet again.

A few short years after the whole _Band of Brothers_ and-by-the-way-here’s-your-unwanted-soulmate debacle, he’d run into James in London.  
  
Complete coincidence, that. Or not, as his mother’d likely remind him; still, he’d truly not known James was in the city, and he’d not known James owned a Vespa, and he’d certainly not expected to look over at a stoplight and see that familiar build and those instantly recognizable muscles on a machine far too similar to Michael’s own.  
  
He hadn’t known that he’d memorized the shape of James, the build of him, the way he tilted his head when thinking, until that precise moment.  
  
He’d been living with a James-shaped hole in his life for years, by then. It’d been agony, as he’d known it would. Every morning, every hour, every heartbeat; but he was a good actor, and even the worst injury, if continuous, could become just another fact of life, he’d discovered. He’d had fun, instead. Dated women, and some men; had nights out on the town; driven fast cars and motorbikes and plunged into the roles and the critical recognition that’d finally _finally_ begun to come his way.  
  
Only at that moment did he understand just how deep the wound had been, as it began painfully to sting anew. And he couldn’t tell if that was the sting of fresh rawness, or of open gaps beginning at last to close.  
  
“James!” he’d shouted, and then the light’d changed, and he’d chased the other Vespa, still shouting, not stopping to think, only following, because James was _right_ _there_ and the fireworks were singing in his blood, and finally he’d added “It’s Michael!” not because he thought that’d get James to stop but because for some reason he wanted James to hear his name, to say it back, to smile.  
  
James had stopped. Had pulled over, pulled off his helmet, laughed. Those extraordinary eyes’d gone right through Michael’s heart. A spear-point of light, piercing him, and he’d never be the same.  
  
“Sorry,” James’d said, “didn’t realize it was you,” and that was a lie, had to be, Michael’d felt the realization the instant they’d drawn near. Surely James had felt it too. Surely.  
  
James had tipped his head to the side, same motion, same little lip-lick, and the bond crackled. Stirred in a way it hadn’t in years. “How’ve you been, then? Obviously good, I mean, considering the jobs you’ve been getting; congratulations, by the way…”  
  
“James,” Michael’d said, because the eyes were the blue he remembered but they weren’t as _bright_ as he remembered, somehow, joyous waves flattened down and restrained and dull. James shook his head; smiled. “We should catch up. It’s been a while; we can do that, right? Pub? Unless you’ve got someplace to be.”  
  
“I—yes. I mean no. I mean…we could find a pub. James…”  
  
“Slower person buys the first round,” James said, and swung a leg back over his bike and roared off, and Michael, laughing, concerned, practically having been dared to beat him there, jumped back onto his own and chased him through the streets.  
  
It’d been his round anyway, in the end, because James hadn’t told him their destination. That was all right; he didn’t mind. They squeezed into a corner—the place was packed, despite it being early afternoon—and had drinks, and Michael talked about Steve McQueen and challenging roles and his father’s retirement from the hotel where he’d worked as a chef for forty years, and the subsequent way his father sometimes looked, a little aimless now, no big events to cater or illustrious guests to entertain, and the way he’d been trying to stop home more often these days; James put a hand on his, while he kept talking, and the gesture felt natural, those freckled fingers warm on his skin.  
  
James was easy to talk to. So easy. The ocean-current eyes looked delighted when Michael, three rounds in, attempted to explain different bird-calls, the ones he’d learned as a boy, and then gave up and started whistling and chirping in order to explain. James gazed at him with unalloyed excitement, and inquired, “can you do a whippoorwill, then?” Michael could, and did.  
  
“Marvelous, you are,” James said. “Put that on your resume. Impress everyone.” Around them, the world hummed, content.  
  
“Maybe I should,” Michael agreed, amused. “James…what about you? How’ve you been? I mean—I know about _Atonement_ , I heard, congratulations, I should’ve said—I’m sorry, I’ve been talking about me this whole time, James, are you—”  
  
“Oh,” James said, into his pint glass, looking down, “I’m marvelous too. Working. Like you said. And thank you, but you don’t have to compliment me; it was more the direction, and the script, I was only lucky enough to get the role, really. You’ve heard about Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men prequel, right?”  
  
“What—” The suddenness of that deflection left him off-balance. Dizzy. Falling off a bridge all over again. “Yes, I heard—I’ve not seen a script or anything yet, but I’d be interested, absolutely—James, you were brilliant. As Robbie. I felt—” He couldn’t say what he’d actually felt. He’d seen James die.  
  
On screen, of course. Not real. But he’d seen the light go out of those blue eyes, the stillness that would never spill over into boundless energy ever again, and the frayed edges of the bond had twisted in his gut and he’d found himself on his knees in the cinema toilet throwing up everything he’d eaten that day.  
  
“—you were very convincing,” he’d finished, weakly. “Were you—that was a long shoot, wasn’t it, that must’ve been hard—”  
  
“Not as hard as you’d think.” James nudged his glass back and forth across the antique wood, through its own puddle, with a finger. “Lucky, again, I suppose. Not having anyone waiting for me; wouldn’t’ve been very fair to them.”  
  
Michael put his own hand out and arrested the motion of the glass. The light slid across it, butter-yellow and startled. “James. Wait. You were—you never got married?”  
  
James looked at the hand with some surprise. “No. Is it my round?”  
  
“No.” It was. “What—you don’t have to tell me, but—”  
  
“What happened?” James appropriated Michael’s glass, drained it, set it down. “I’ve never lied to her. And she’d have to know everything, if she married me. So I told her. About us. Ages ago, back during _Brothers_ ; I thought you felt that, that night. She didn’t believe me, at first. And then she did. And then we tried to make it work, and then she told me that she didn’t feel comfortable being the third person in a relationship that was meant to be between two people—that was ‘meant to be’, she said—and nothing I could say could convince her that I loved her enough. So I’m not married.”  
  
“Fuck,” Michael said, after a second. “James, I—I didn’t know—I didn’t even think about—I’m so sorry.”  
  
“It’s all right.” James shrugged, too casual. “She’s happier, and I’m…well, everything you said, back then. Career taking off, my own life, all of that. Fuck destiny. I should probably warn you, by the way, I’m more of a lightweight than you think. I never did drink that much. And I’ve just finished your beer.”  
  
“Fuck,” Michael said again. Took James’s hand in his—and, all right, maybe he’d been drinking a bit too quickly too—and held it, the way that James had held his, earlier, when Michael’d been babbling about his father, when his voice’d cracked. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Right now? I should probably eat something. And then head home.” James had looked at his hand, secure under Michael’s. “Unless…are we…”  
  
“Oh—sorry, no, I mean, I didn’t mean—” He’d let go of that hand. Pretended his own didn’t miss the warmth. “Sorry. I was just…it’s hard not to…”  
  
“I know. Don’t worry about it.” James was doing that not-quite-meeting-his-eyes reaction again. Fuck, Michael thought. And then, out of nowhere, he had another thought: he’d never asked what James thought of the soul-bond business in the first place. They’d agreed that neither of them had wanted the connection, then; but had James been one of those romantic children, believing in true love, hoping that someday he’d meet a soulmate and live happily ever after?  
  
He pictured younger James—it wasn’t that hard; James still looked ageless and perfect, as if he’d not grown any older in the years since they’d met—with floppy hair and those endless eyes, gazing off at a shining distant future. Found himself surprised at the rush of breathlessness that filled his chest: what if they hadn’t been bonded, and fallen into each other that day? What if they’d never even met?  
  
“James,” he inquired, “did you ever…you know the terrible television movies, the romances about finding your bonded person across time and space…”  
  
Both eyebrows flew up. “Are you asking if I’ve ever been in one, or if I’ve ever seen one? Either way, I’m not sure I should admit to the answer.”  
  
“You _have_?”  
  
“What did I just say?” But James was laughing, now, and their gazes found each other, across the table. “Why were you asking, anyway?”  
  
“I was—I just wanted to know what you—which one were you _in_?”  
  
“Not telling.” James grinned. “But I did end up watching rather a lot of them. My gran loves a good sappy romance, the unlikelier the better. Funny, really; I never thought about why, until I got older. And then it was sort of obvious. Same reason she always baked gingerbread when I had a girl, or a boy, over, even though she never baked anything else in her life.”  
  
Given that opening, Michael was helpless, and had to ask. “Why?”  
  
“Oh…” James poked at the pint glass one more time. “My parents. I think Gran was hoping that if she raised us—me and my sister, Joy, you’d like her—with all the examples that shouted yes, love exists, we might…forget about why we lived with her. Sorry, that’s very much not cheerful, is it? If it makes you feel any better, I’ll admit that it was the one with the cheesy time-travel premise and the tinfoil science-fiction costumes. You know, the terrible _Star Wars_ rip-off.”  
  
“ _You_ were in _Star Amours?!_ ”  
  
“Don’t say that so loudly, people might hear you!”  
  
In fact, people had. They’d gotten a free round of drinks from someone who evidently remembered that film with fondness. James had looked at the table as if wanting to dive under it, but smiled at his enthusiastic fan, and even politely signed a napkin, and posed for a photo.  
  
“You didn’t have to do that.”  
  
“It made him happy,” James had said, shrugging again, flushed from the alcohol, the embarrassment, but smiling a little, too: he genuinely meant it, Michael thought, was happy to’ve made another person happy.  
  
The happiness danced in the bond between them, shining and full of possibilities. Everybody cheerful and bright. Turtledoves and wedding bells, as you were.  
  
He’d caught himself wanting to reach for James’s hand again.  
  
He hadn’t done it, then. He did now, on the other side of memory, lacing his fingers through immobile ones.   
  
He was still scared. But he was scared of different possibilities, now.  
  
And the afternoon wore on, interminable and grey, white and blank, the antiseptic scents of hospital and cleanliness wafting around him.   
  
He’d let James go home without him that day, much later, after they’d eaten and sobered up and stood there looking at each other for a while, under the gradually encroaching fog. It made an enclave, a tiny space, just for the two of them, under the streetlight.  
  
James had been standing just a little too close to him, and the lingering buzz of the alcohol bounced around between them—more James’s than his own—and there’d been a hint of cold, James’s jacket not quite enough protection against the frost, and even though James hadn’t said anything aloud, Michael thought, _I could_ , and imagined his coat over James’s shoulders, his arms around James, James back at his place, James in his bed, the two of them keeping warm, and in the morning he could make pancakes and James would never have to be chilly again…  
  
James would never leave his life, ever again.  
  
James parted his lips, preparing to speak, or possibly to be kissed; he looked eminently kissable, the crystals of the fog tangling in his long eyelashes like decorations, fitting tribute to all that loveliness.  
  
Michael’d said, “I have to go,” and took a step back, and turned, and found his bike, and went.  
  
He’d wanted to call or text the next morning—not because he wanted to see James, definitely not, but because he woke up with a low-level headache that wasn’t his and a sore left arm and he didn’t know whether that was from James sleeping awkwardly or whether James’d been in an accident, on the bike, on the way home, more tipsy than Michael’d thought at the time, sliding out of control in the fog, and he didn’t have James’s number, why hadn’t he asked for James’s number…  
  
James, waking up more, had reached back across the link, whispers of surprised shy pleasure that Michael cared, drowsy reassurance: he was all right, he’d made it home, passed out on the lumpy sofa, that was all…  
  
Michael’d nodded, as curtly as he could manage, and closed down as much as he could, on his side. James obviously took the hint, and possibly some aspirin, because the headache went away and never returned, and neither did that soft bashful touch across distance.


	3. fate and what we make of it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out what happened.

On the pillow before him, James turned his head, and Michael’s heart jumped into his throat. But it was only a sleep-movement, ending in stillness again.  
  
Michael bit his lip. A stray loop of hair had fallen over one of those eyebrows, over closed eyes. He used his other hand to stroke it back. It coiled around his finger, lonesome.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he breathed again, to it, to the voiceless white walls, to the placid equipment. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
He’d known James had been cast for _First Class_ when he auditioned. That’d been the first announcement; Michael’s audition was already scheduled, and he had a crazy momentary thought of backing out, but he couldn’t, not when this film would launch him into summer-blockbuster, box-office-draw territory, the kind of recognition and security he’d wanted for so long.  
  
It wasn’t exactly a standard audition—he was at least past the cattle-call stage, thank god—but he did have to run lines with James, because everyone up for the role of Erik/Magneto would have to run lines with James. Testing the chemistry, the connection. He laughed out loud, in his uncaring kitchen, at that part.  
  
He could be professional. He could keep it together. He’d been doing an excellent job so far. And James felt the same way, about their careers; James would agree. He could explain at the audition, strictly business, purely a job, and James would understand. James was good at understanding.  
  
The audition…  
  
It had been flawless. And that never happened, not in this business, not with sight-reads and self-conscious attempts to manufacture chemistry, everyone trying too hard to work well together and get the parts. But with James none of that applied.  
  
They anticipated each other’s reactions. Fell into sequence as if they’d been working together for years. Went off-script and improvised and tossed lines back and forth without hesitation. When James argued, as Charles, about the importance of being better men, and Michael retorted that they already were, the passion snapped and seared through the meeting room.  
  
The decision was made on the spot, and was no surprise to anyone who’d been there.  
  
The first day of rehearsals, he’d pulled James aside. Made his full prepared speech, a perfect monologue, the one he’d practiced to his hotel mirror about how they could use this, could read each other, could play Erik and Charles as soulmates, and that was all it could be. Work. Usefulness. Better performances. What they both wanted. He’d made every logical argument he could think of regarding the importance of that fact.  
  
They were only going to use the bond. They wouldn’t mean it. Nothing would change, nothing would interfere.  
  
James had looked up at him, opened his mouth, closed it, nodded. In silence.  
  
Matthew’d loved the dynamic. Babbled about how fortunate he was to have bonded actors playing his romantic leads. Compared them to Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.  
  
Michael’d rolled his eyes. James, of all people, had said, low-voiced, “they were bonded, Matthew, but they fell out of love, after a while,” and Matthew’d stopped talking.  
  
He had wanted to say something, then, to James, to those dark blue eyes, calm as the surface of oceans, giving nothing away underneath. But he hadn’t known what. And the link had chosen that moment to fade into near-nonexistence.  
  
He’d thought they could maintain that professional distance. He tried. But being around James, touching James, working so closely, mirroring each other’s emotions and exhaustions, exhilarations and tiredness…  
  
He could feel the bond strengthening, pulling them closer with each day. Found himself unconsciously sitting next to James at meals, bringing an extra apple because James was thinking vaguely about wanting one, putting an arm over those shoulders when they walked from place to place. James stole forkfuls of food from his plate, and waved a piece of Michael’s chicken in the air while talking excitedly at Nicholas, and Michael hooked their feet together without thinking, under the table.  
  
And then there’d been the awful day. The beach scene day.  
  
The morning’d begun perfectly. Too perfect, he thought now, with the bitterness of retrospect. Gold sun and white sand and cloudless blue skies. He should’ve known.  
  
He’d been standing there on the beach next to James, watching all the set-up, lines and marks in the sand, the camera crews nodding at each other. The wrecked submarine loomed, looking real with all its might, and the wind blew merrily through the palm trees, and when the single jet that Matthew’d been using previously for establishing shots streaked overhead in a silver flash, James turned to him with a smile more brilliant than the sunshine, breathless and bright.  
  
The force of all that happiness burst through their bond, too, unguarded coruscating elation: they were here, James was thinking, doing this together, the two of them in their element under the sun, and it was perfect, so perfect, and in that moment Michael could tell, could absolutely tell, that James had no regrets at all. That he’d made peace with everything he’d given up, that it was worth it, to have this, right then.  
  
That feeling didn’t terrify him. What terrified him was the way he wanted to answer, equally open and joyful and free: he wanted to say yes, to say yes to it all.  
  
He wanted to kiss James forever under golden sunlight on glorious beaches, or in crowded pubs with tipsy blue eyes laughing at his bird-calls over a pint, or in hotel beds that would no longer be lonely with all those acres of freckles for company. He wanted to know what James was thinking, whether James was smiling or sad, and if James was ever sad he wanted to reach out and hold him in every possible way.  
  
And he’d never been more afraid.  
  
James looked up at him, all lovely exuberant eagerness. The wind flicked his hair into his eyes. “Michael?”  
  
“What?” Too harsh. But he couldn’t stop it.  
  
“I wanted to ask you…are you all right? You look a bit distressed.” James studied him, far too perceptively. “Do you want to sit down, or something? I can get you water.”  
  
“I don’t need anything.”  
  
James blinked. Recovered; rallied words like courageous soldiers. They sprang to his defense, shielding any vulnerable places. “All right, then…can I ask you something?”  
  
“Can I stop you?” He knew he was being awful. Couldn’t seem to hold back the words.  
  
“I was just…never mind.” James sighed. “I have to go over there, okay? So that I can run over here and tackle you?”  
  
“You’re looking forward to that, aren’t you?” He knew James was. Could feel it. So was he. “Were you hoping I’d change my mind about being bonded to you? Because we’ve been having so much fun lately?”  
  
James’s face had gone absolutely white. But he answered nonetheless, with more composure than Michael would’ve given him credit for. Certainly more than those words deserved. “I was going to suggest that we talk about it. Because—because I know what we said, but things’ve changed, you know they have, and this has been good, we both know it has. And I never really asked you why you were so opposed to trying to make this work, and I thought maybe I should. So…yes, I thought we could have a conversation.”  
  
“Nothing’s changed,” Michael snapped. “I’m not happy about this, and it’s not my fault that you’ve suddenly decided to ignore that fact, and I’m _not_ in love with you!” Lies. All lies. Every single word. But the truth would mean admitting he’d been wrong for his entire life, admitting that James was right, admitting that they belonged in each other’s lives and destiny would win in the end. He couldn’t. He _couldn’t_.  
  
James blinked again. “Who said anything about love?”  
  
“You—”  
  
“I only said we should talk. Try to…make this work, maybe. You said love.”  
  
“I did _not_.”  
  
“Okay, now I _seriously_ think we need to talk about this—”  
  
“Do you _ever_ stop talking?”  
  
James took a step back, at that. As if the question’d physically hurt. Michael felt instantly guilty, and so refused to apologize.  
  
“Yes,” James said, “I do.”  
  
And then turned, and walked away.  
  
And Michael took a step after him, putting out a hand.  
  
And Matthew shouted, “Okay, everyone in place? James, hurry up, we’re waiting on you!” and the first take began.  
  
James’s shoulder went into his ribs, the first time; Michael actually couldn’t help the “Oof!” as he hit the ground, and everyone laughed, which ought to’ve broken the tension.  
  
It didn’t. James didn’t laugh. Barely even looked at him.  
  
They did it again. And again. James seemed grimly determined to get the placement exactly right. No more joy in the air. None at all. And the hint of awareness that remained between them felt cold, despite all the sunlight. Icicles over a northern sea, unmelting and deadly and frozen.  
  
Michael realized, standing there in his sand-covered suit, no longer pristinely blue-and-yellow, looking at James’s retreating back, that he didn’t like the cold.  
  
The ice was his fault. He’d hurt James.  
  
He’d hurt James because James was right, because Michael was in love with him, and the first time they’d ever met he’d all but called James a coward, afraid of a little pain, but he was the coward, because he was afraid of wanting everything James offered, and he didn’t know how to say yes when the yes meant giving up the independence he’d always valued. Above anything else.  
  
But he needed to apologize. And maybe James would have some ideas, James was brilliant as well as beautiful, and James was compassionate and thoughtful and generous, and of course he needed to talk to James about this. He wanted to.  
  
The next time they dove into the sand, he rolled them over so that he was on top, and pinned James beneath him, anchoring both arms so that they couldn’t wriggle free before he had a chance to speak, and whispered, while blue eyes glared at him with out-of-character ferocity, “I’m sorry. We should talk. After this?”  
  
James kicked him. Hard.  
  
Michael fell off him and into the dirt, gasping.  
  
James started to speak, stopped, swallowed. Touched one wrist, turned those burning-ice eyes on Michael, touched his own lips, shook his head, and mimed the twisting of a lock, the throwing-away of a key. Walked away.  
  
Michael sat there in the dirt. His stomach throbbed, partly from where James’d hit him and partly from the message: _I have stopped talking_ , James had said. _You held me down, and you asked whether I ever stopped talking, and I’ve stopped talking to you._  
  
For the first time, he thought that James might not forgive him.  
  
That James might walk off the set and out of his life. Completely.  
  
That James might decide that the life they’d been living before, that kind of half-life full of dreary unfulfilled longing, would be better than living with him.  
  
And James might be right about that too. Hadn’t he just been thinking that James was the kindest person he knew?  
  
If James, even James, couldn’t forgive him…  
  
He got up, because he had to. And they did the scene again, because they had to.  
  
And all the anger and the loneliness and the self-loathing collided in his head, and so when James tackled him the next time, Michael fought back, the two of them rolling over and over together across the sand, crashing into each other, bodies so close, and it felt—good, even through all the raw-edged emotions, the scent of James, the weight of him, the two of them in sync even here, unspoken agreement, letting everything out.  
  
He kept his hands away from those wrists. Was careful not to pin James down; made sure to let him up as soon as possible. James seemed startled, at that. Still didn’t talk; but, during the take after that, did relax, infinitesimally, against him.  
  
“I didn’t mean it,” he whispered that next time, holding his own weight up. “I was just—I was wrong, I’ve been an idiot, and you’re right, we should talk, you should talk, if you want to, James, please.”  
  
After a second, he got a nod, and a small indrawn breath; James wriggled beneath him, and Michael felt their hips move together and that felt right too, James under him, eyes suddenly huge, one leg wrapping around his waist and those hands all at once not fighting him anymore, the bond alive again and sizzling with desire, the ice burning away, and yes, _yes_ , but _no_ —  
  
They’d rolled out of the demarcated fluffy-sand set lines, encouraged by their own momentum. There were rocks here, and scratchy plants, and James panting his name, too soon and too fast, and Michael couldn’t breathe either, panicking and overwhelmed, and this was all happening right here and now—  
  
He gasped “ _No_ ,” and flipped them over and threw James away from him, hard, as hard as he could, out of his head and away from his body and soul, where James already was anyway—  
  
There was a sound. He’d never heard that exact sound before. He’d remember it as long as he lived.  
  
And there was silence in his soul.  
  
He flung himself up and across the sand and down at James’s side. Where James’s head had hit the rock, not even enough time to cry out in pain.  
  
Those eyes were shut. One hand lay limply in the seagrass and sand.  
  
“No,” Michael whispered. “No, no, James, please, please, I didn’t mean it—”  
  
He could see the blood. It was flowing out from the back of James’s head, matting all the hair, soaking the grey stone. So much blood.  
  
James wasn’t dead. He’d know if James were dead. He’d’ve felt that. Wouldn’t he?  
  
Their link had never been that strong. Because he hadn’t let it be. Because he’d been so afraid of losing himself, losing his independence, losing everything.  
  
But now he might lose James. And he might not even know.  
  
The set paramedics arrived within moments. So did Matthew and Kevin and Jennifer and everyone else, running over. They all looked white and grim.  
  
James’s face was white, too. Bloodless, under the freckles.  
  
Michael sat there shaking, trying futilely to hold James’s hand when James didn’t hold his back, whispering his name over and over.  
  
Someone murmured “shock” in regards to him, and someone else put a blanket around his shoulders, and Kevin said, “Come on, hey, it’s not your fault, you didn’t put the rock there,” and Michael opened his mouth and then just crumpled, horrified, into a heap on the sand.  
  
It was his fault. He’d been angry. He’d deliberately thrown James away from him. And no one knew that.  
  
He couldn’t recall the ride to the closest hospital. All a blur. The only part that stood out was the pallor of James’s face. That, and all the blood.  
  
Hours later, sitting folded up in the uncomfortable hospital-issue chair with his feet tucked under him—his mother’d have a fit about shoes on the furniture, but he was cold everywhere and couldn’t seem to get warm—he still saw the blood, even though the wound’d been cleaned and bandaged after the emergency surgery. He still heard that sound.  
  
One of the nurses had put a blanket over his shoulders. Otherwise, he’d been more or less left alone. Soul-bonds, he recalled reading somewhere, could be useful, medically speaking: there were records of coma patients waking, called back by the presence of their bonded. Trauma victims who held onto the link as a source of stability, the knowledge of love. And partners generally knew when something was wrong, or right, even before the equipment did, that extra sense at work again.  
  
But he didn’t know. He held James’s hand, and he didn’t know.  
  
“James,” he whispered again, “I’m so sorry. I’ll be here, I swear, I’ll be here forever if it’ll help you, I want to help, I do, I love you, I’m sorry I was so fucking afraid of this, of us, I’ll do better, I’ll listen to you talk forever, but you have to wake up in order to talk, James, please…”  
  
Nothing. And he felt the tears fall, at last, hot and salty over his cheeks. He didn’t try to stop them. Maybe James would know that he meant it, somehow.  
  
That doctor came by again, after an indeterminate time. “Anything?”  
  
Michael pulled himself slightly together, swiped his free hand across his face, shook his head.  
  
“Okay. We’ve notified his on-record emergency contact—his sister—looks like he never got around to changing it to you, but then bonded couples sometimes forget things like that, they assume the other person’ll know…anyway, she’s over in Glasgow, but she’ll be here when she can. Until then—”  
  
“I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
“I was going to say, talk to him. Try to reach him.”  
  
“I’ve been—”  
  
“Not out loud. Through your link. You _have_ done that, haven’t you?”  
  
“I can’t—” He stopped. “We aren’t—we’ve never—it’s not a strong bond…”  
  
The doctor looked at him in silence for a while, then shook his head, expression carefully masking any comment, critical or sympathetic. “Then he’ll just have to awaken, or not, on his own. I’m sorry.”  
  
Sorry. Michael watched James’s face, after the door swung shut. He was sorry, too. The word didn’t begin to cover it. The enormity of what he’d done.  
  
Talk to him, the man had said.  
  
He took a deep breath. Pictured James, the first time they’d ever met, all jewel-shaded eyes and nutmeg freckles, standing there with him and being equally aggrieved at the vagaries of the universe. James meeting him in the pub, successful and self-sufficient and saying nothing about how painful the disintegration of his engagement had been, nothing about the childhood that’d led to a life of being raised by his grandparents, but resting his hand on Michael’s while Michael talked about his father’s difficulty adjusting to retirement life. James beside him on a beach, gazing skyward at a flying jet, eyes full of wonder and delight.  
  
I’m in love with you, he thought. I would love you even if we weren’t bonded at all. I don’t know how to live without you, because ever since I met you I’ve been living with you in my heart. I’m still scared, and I want all of you, and I want to try to be less scared with you. Please wake up. Please.  
  
The ragged loose corners of the link, tying him to James, fluttered strangely. Like butterfly-wings in his soul.  
  
Shh, he said to them. It’s all right.  
  
James would have said that. Would’ve tried to comfort the world, to tell it that nothing broken was irreparable, after all.  
  
I want you, he told James, wordlessly. I wanted you from that first second. Like a perfect embodiment of all my preferences, I thought. I never asked whether I fit all, or some, or any, of yours.  
  
He’d never even inquired whether James was interested in men. James had been engaged, he recalled, to a woman.  
  
“I should have asked,” he said, out loud. “This was harder for you than I knew, wasn’t it? And you still wanted to try. You asked me about making this work. You were—you are—”  
  
Astonishing. Braver than he’d ever imagined. Heroic, and he meant that wholeheartedly.  
  
He tried to let James feel that, too. Shut his eyes and opened up his heart and poured everything out into the connection, refusing to think that it could only end in empty blankness, a void.  
  
James _wasn’t_ dead. He’d _know_.  
  
He was still cold. He had two blankets over his shoulders, and he was curled up in the chair, and this was ridiculous, he wasn’t the one who got cold easily, that was James, who always—  
  
James, he thought, very clear, very precise, afraid to hope. James?  
  
And the world snapped into focus, around them.  
  
James didn’t answer in words, but the emotions flowed between them like sparkling water, clear and vital and bright to his senses. Incredulous relief. Desperate, painfully tentative, comprehension. Real pain, mostly physical. Affection, small and hesitantly blooming as mountain wildflowers. The cold, because James had been cold, and someone had heard, Michael had heard, Michael was here—  
  
 _I love you,_ Michael breathed, actual words because James could hear them, not out loud because he was crying, and yanked off his blankets and threw them over the bed. _I love you, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, James, I mean—_  
  
 _I know—_  
  
James did know; he could feel it. No secrets, all those fears and deepest regrets and hopeless hopes out and revealed.  
  
The link shivered, and sang, complete. Both of them committed now. He couldn’t want anything less, not feeling James this way, glorious and splendid and entwined with his soul.  
  
“James,” he said, out loud, and caught the spark of surprised pleasure, James liking the sound of Michael’s voice saying his name.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he added, because it needed to be said, out loud with the universe as a witness. “I should have asked you—so many things, I should’ve—I’m asking you now. Everything. Anything you want to tell me. Or not tell me. Or—or—” He stopped. Took a breath. James’s head hurt.  
  
“If you can’t—I did that. To you.” This time he looked away. The blue eyes were very quiet. “I understand. If you can’t forgive me.”  
  
“Michael,” James said, finally, and attempted to sit up.  
  
“Don’t—!” He dove for the bed controls. “Please. James—just. Please.”  
  
“Thank you…and thank you. For bringing me back.” A visible shiver, despite the blankets. “I was…someplace cold. And I heard you. Talking.”  
  
“Thank god,” Michael said, because he had no other words. “Thank you. For hearing—for coming back. For me.”  
  
“You said…” James hesitated; those hands moved restlessly on the blanket. “You said you were…in love with me.”  
  
“Because I am. I’m sorry.”  
  
“For loving me?”  
  
“For everything. I can’t apologize enough. What I did to you…”  
  
“You didn’t exactly plan on throwing me into a rock. I know you didn’t. I can hear what you’re thinking, also, you know.”  
  
“Still. And not only for that.”  
  
“I know. You were scared. And you weren’t wrong.” The blanket pleated itself into fretful folds, between those hands. “This is…there’s no going back. Not now.”  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
“No. You think you’re in love with me.”  
  
“I am in love with you.” He’d thought James had felt that. He tried, voicelessly, pushing those emotions forward into the connection, to show it again.  
  
“Yes, thank you, I can feel all of…you _do_ mean it.”  
  
“I do.” The monitors chose that moment to beep. He wasn’t sure whether that was mockery, or simple emphasis. No doctors had shown up to check on the awakened patient yet; might be laziness, or simply no one noticing, or they were giving the bonded couple the moment of reunion.  
  
“I’m not in love with you,” James said, then.  
  
“You’re not—of course you’re not.” Of course not. How could he have hoped, even for a split second, for a different answer? He’d’ve felt it, if it were true. And it shouldn’t be. Not after everything.  
  
“I’ll just—I can—I’ll go. I’m so sorry, James. For—for all of this. And I do mean it.” He stood up, slowly because his legs were threatening to cease their support at any second. Took a step toward the door.  
  
He did mean it. But he could apologize forever, and the truth would remain: he’d had his chance, and he’d not only ignored it, he’d thrown it into a rock and put it into the hospital and all but killed it.  
  
He managed one more step, while his heart soundlessly broke.  
  
James said, “Michael, wait.”  
  
He froze. Turned around, very slowly.  
  
James sighed, more weary than anything else, but with an undercurrent of emotion, indecipherable and complex. “You can…can you get me some water? Please.”  
  
“Of course.” Water, and a straw, so that James wouldn’t have to sit up too much. “Is this all right? Or—”  
  
“It’s fine, thank you.” A sip; an expression that was almost a smile. Michael hovered by the side of the bed, uncertain, heart thumping madly in his chest.  
  
The world felt different, in some odd way. Purer, distilled, more sharply defined. Like eyes adjusting, walking out of a dark room and into sunlight for the first time. James had asked him for water.  
  
The connection purred and flared, fireworks and serene darkness, between them.  
  
“I’m not in love with you yet,” James said, looking up at him. “I didn’t say we couldn’t try. I didn’t say you couldn’t persuade me. I might be persuadable.”  
  
“You—you said—James, are you saying—”  
  
“I like pumpkin-spice coffee. My favorite holiday is Christmas.” James held out a hand. Michael, feeling as if he were in some sort of unpredictable dream, afraid to believe in case he woke up, took it. “I speak very bad Klingon. And my favorite Shakespeare play is _Macbeth_.”  
  
“So is mine,” Michael whispered, and saw the answering smile. “And…I like black coffee, but…we can live with that…why Christmas?”  
  
“I like watching other people open presents. Especially when they don’t think anyone’s remembered that they like peppermint, or trains, or Silver Age Green Lantern comics…They always look so happy.”  James paused for more water; Michael said, involuntarily, “You’re amazing,” and got a blush, pink drenching all the freckles. “I am not. That’s just being nice. Anyone would.”  
  
“You’re amazing at being nice,” Michael told him, and rubbed his thumb over the back of that hand, gently, exploring the way that pale skin felt against his. “You might have to educate me about Star Trek. I do still own my old model AT-ATs, though, if you’re not opposed to Star Wars…”  
  
“Oh,” James said, and turned his hand, so that their fingers wove together, echoing their thoughts, “I think Star Wars and Star Trek might, you know, be able to coexist.”  
  
And the doctors came clattering in, asking questions about awareness and potential memory loss and levels of pain, and James answered honestly, face still a little pale. He never let go of Michael’s hand, physically and not, the entire time.


	4. six months later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a happy ending.

Michael woke up, nearly six months later, to the scent of apple shampoo on his pillow, and that now-familiar compact muscular shape in his bed, and James in his heart.   
  
He lay there for a while as the morning crept towards proper day. James was sleeping, safe and sound and breathing steadily; James was a morning person not by inclination but by necessity, he’d figured out, and enjoyed lazy mornings off to their utmost. Michael, who tended to want to accomplish as much as possible on any given day, was discovering that he could want to accomplish staying in bed and holding James, drowsy and warm, more than anything else.  
  
James stirred, not physically, but edging towards wakefulness; attuned as usual, he nudged back, coaxing thoughts about coffee and breakfast and crossword puzzles in bed or maybe other things in bed, if James would be in the mood for that. James murmured back something affectionate and wordless, and curled into the hollow left by his body as Michael got up to get the aforementioned coffee started.  
  
James might be in the mood, once awake. James hadn’t _quite_ been a virgin with men, which he’d admitted when Michael’d finally cautiously got around to raising that question, but he was very enthusiastic, and a quick learner, and, it turned out, easily aroused by the sight of Michael walking around naked in their shared hotel room.  
  
Michael walked around naked often.  
  
They were here in the nondescript hotel, not out hunting for a flat together, because filming had recommenced, several weeks ago. James had tried to insist on going back to work after a week’s hospital rest; Michael had opened his mouth, then literally bitten his lip, so hard he tasted blood.  
  
James’s health. James’s decision. He was done trying to make choices for the both of them.  
  
But James had smiled, a small upward curve of those lips, and said, “…all right, maybe two weeks, at least? I’ll stay in bed at the hotel, and you can get back to work, and not slow down the production even more?” and Michael’d breathed out in relief and started to say “thank you” and James had gone up on tiptoes and kissed him, there in the street outside the hospital beside the car waiting to take them home.  
  
Their first kiss. James had tasted like chapstick and summer days and amusement, like strawberries and ice-cream and county fairs, all excitement and simple affectionate joy.  
  
He’d touched his lips, after, a little amazed; James had grinned, shrugged, said, “I’ve never actually kissed a man before, you’re my first, you know, would you like to try it again, because I would,” and Michael’d let out the kind of possessive growl he’d never expected to hear from himself and pulled James into his arms.  
  
James hadn’t protested the possessive streak. Michael found himself somewhat embarrassed by this unsuspected part of his personality, and then gave up on being embarrassed, because James seemed to like it.  
  
He liked knowing what James liked. And he remembered every desire, whether that involved kisses to the back of his neck or pistachio ice-cream for dessert.  
  
James had promised that Michael could try to persuade him. So Michael tried.  
  
He thought maybe it was working—certainly James, unprompted, had been the one to climb into his lap while Michael was faithfully watching the complete first season of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ at his request, and therefore the one most responsible for distracting them both quite thoroughly from Captain Picard—but he’d also been finding that he was afraid of one last thing, and that was the unknown answer. What James would say, if asked.  
  
He didn’t ask. But he thought he could feel it, possibly, potentially, that evanescent sweetness, glowing like liquid sapphires, between them.  
  
He could always feel James, now. Near, far, the distance didn’t matter. He’d’ve hated that constant tether, once. These days it felt like an anchor. A home.  
  
Wherever they went, that would be the same. On the next project, or side by side on a soundstage, or separate on different continents, he’d be with James, and James would be with him, forever.  
  
There was still some required adaptation, of course. Neither of them was terribly practiced at balancing multiple emotions, input from twinned sources, and occasionally James said one of Michael’s lines aloud when Michael was concentrating very hard; Michael sprinted across the film set, and destroyed Matthew’s carefully placed shot, the time that James stubbed a toe on a stone step and yelped in pain. James liked to know where he was, to stay in contact, a curious quick brush of awareness across the link; Michael didn’t really mind, but this had resulted in some distracted moments, not good when he was in the middle of wire-work and complicated stunts.  
  
He wondered, on occasion, hopefully deep down enough that the thought was only for himself, whether that wistful clinging was a legacy of his own carelessness with James, such that James couldn’t quite have faith in them at some unconscious level; whether, alternately, it was an older wound, a memory of a father who should’ve loved him and who’d walked out the door and never come home. Maybe it was just James, fathomless wells of self-deprecation under that laughing generosity of spirit.   
  
He tried to always answer, to reach back and hold James’s intangible hand, clumsily but sincerely. He wanted to. Wanted to be there. Committed.  
  
They learned. Together.   
  
He tried not to overreact to minor incidents, these days. To wait and inquire whether James was all right, what James wanted him to do. And James grew a bit more confident, more certain of Michael’s presence, his resolution, his love.   
  
He’d probably never not worry when James was cold or tired or in pain, but he could lean on the bond for reassurance, and he was finding he liked that too. James got better at timing the plaintive tiny check-in moments, remembering Michael’s schedule, still kissing him through the link at unexpected times but doing so before and after intense scenes, not during.  
  
And, he thought, sitting down on the side of the bed that morning, coffee cup in hand, this was a good life. They were good. Together.  
  
He kind of wanted to go back in time and shake his younger self. He’d had no idea. Being this close wasn’t a weakness. It took nothing away from him. It was a strength.  
  
And then he corrected that thought, as sleepy blue eyes blinked and opened, in the depths of the pillows. _James_ was his strength. “Good morning.”  
  
“Morning…” A yawn; up on one elbow, but no move to acquire the coffee just yet. “You’re smiling.”  
  
“I’m happy. Did you want me to make breakfast for us, or would you rather go out somewhere?”  
  
“I can tell you are. Whichever you want, really; I’m not awake enough to be hungry yet. Though I wouldn’t say no to you offering.”  
  
“Then…pancakes?” He handed over the mug; when James took it, their fingers touched. The heat spread out, and warmed them both through. “We might even have walnuts and cinnamon.”  
  
“Is this a special occasion? Or are you just feeling the need to indulge me, today?” Cheerful, but with a hint of darkness behind that; he could feel James pulling back, withdrawing into unobtrusiveness, the way that James tended to when faced with unexpected kindness: something had to be wrong, Michael must want something, or be trying to soften bad news, or was about to tell him to get out and never come into the cozy hotel suite again, it was too hard after all…  
  
Michael shook his head. Said, “James, stop that,” and covered those anxious hands with his, folding them around the ceramic curves of the mug; let them both feel it all, every piece of his heart, laid bare for James to accept and hold if he wanted to, all the protectiveness and fond thoughts about seeing that smile in the morning every damn day, special occasion or not, and gratitude for the second chance and determination and desire and love, always love, nothing held back.   
  
James gasped at the force of it, but didn’t flinch. Reached for him in turn, embracing the flood with something like awe: you want me, you want this, you mean it all…  
  
“Yes,” Michael told him. “Yes, I do.”  
  
And the knowledge of it spread up into blue eyes, slowly, warming them from the inside.  
  
James took a sip of coffee, somehow managing to do so even with their joined hands. “Pumpkin-spice. You remembered.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“You always do.”  
  
“Of…course?”  
  
“I told you,” James said, and smiled at him, sitting in the messy pile of sheets and pillows on the ordinary pumpkin-scented morning, just a day, two days shy of a six-month milestone, “that you might be able to persuade me. Of something.”  
  
“That I love you? I do. You know that.”  
  
“No,” James said, leaning in, bringing them so close that their noses bumped together, gently, and Michael breathed in the taste of him, “that I love you.”


End file.
